Our 14th meetup brought us into one-year-old bottle shop & bar, Public Beer and Wine on 4th Street and Pine. This downtown Long Beach gem specializes in serving loads of local and national craft beer on tap, with a small but unique bottle selection as well. As a special treat, co-owner and brewer Bobby Fitzgerald of new Costa Mesa brewery Gunwhale Ales brought in some beers for us to try, a variety of hop-forward farmhouse ales and an IPA. It was a great turnout and we had a chance to taste some fantastic beers by Gunwhale. Special thanks to Bobby for traveling out from San Diego to share his tasty brews with us and to Gino and the crew at Public Beer & Wine for hosting our group. Looking forward to seeing everyone at our next gathering soon!

UPDATE: The Bottle Shoppe will not be opening this weekend, July 1st, as originally planned due to unforeseen circumstances. We’ll update this article with the new opening date once it’s known. Thanks!

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There’s a new bottle shop(pe) in town and their doors will be opening on Friday, July 1, kicking off the big holiday weekend with loads of grand opening beer events!

Owner George Younan plans to not only offer a large, unique selection of craft beers at the shop, he also promises to host regular tasting events for neighborhood microbrew lovers. A ribbon cutting and bourbon tasting will kick things off on Friday at noon, along with a tasting hosted that day by Pizza Port from 3 pm to 6 pm. Pop in on Saturday for loads of giveaways and Sunday afternoon for a special beer tasting from Great Divide Brewing out of Colorado from 1 pm to 5 pm.

Upcoming beer tastings will include Modern Times and many others are slated for the rest of the month. “Ultimately we’d like to have tastings every Friday and Saturday, possibly other days,” says Younan. “We’re one of the few locations to do tastings and we intend on using our tastings space for many future events.” Beer tastings at the Bottle Shoppe are free and feature one ounce pours of, on average, six different beers by the featured brewery. The store will carry upwards of 600 unique craft brews.

Check the Bottle Shoppe’s Facebook page for announcements about the grand opening this weekend as well as future events. Hope to see some of you this holiday weekend at the new beer spot on Naples. Cheers!

The Bottle Shoppe is located at 5764 E. 2nd Street, Suite 150, Long Beach, California 90803.